Are you using a subwoofer/subwoofers?

[MakeMineVinyl]

I won’t try to come back with various authorities who define music as a melody attached to a rhythm.

Actually, a music composition requires neither. Sometimes music can be silence with 'intent' of music such as Stockhausen's 4'33".

.

 

[Berwhale]

Actually, a music composition requires neither. Sometimes music can be silence with 'intent' of music such as Stockhausen's 4'33".

.

I hope they didn't get paid for that!

 

[sarumbear]

There's disrespect, and there's *managing to misspell two letters of a three letter name"

There’s pettiness as well. It was a typo, two letters are next to each other.

 

[sarumbear]

Actually, a music composition requires neither. Sometimes music can be silence with 'intent' of music such as Stockhausen's 4'33".

.

I have intent for many words to that but @AdamG247 will ban me in a jiffy.

Instead I’m off.

 

[ryanosaur]

I hope they didn't get paid for that!

How about this:

Annea Lockwood - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Sashoir]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about sound reproduction, and very little about music.

To the people who haven't tried sub-woofers because their preferred kinds of music don't require the production of very long wavelength sounds: if you listen to much music which has not been recorded with close microphones in a dead room, you should consider trying sub-woofers if funds, living space & cetera permit (which is a pretty substantial if, I realise).

In my experience (n=1, &c) recordings made in halls, churches, and similar venues, when recorded with only a few microphones, sound significantly different when reproduced with sub-woofers. Even a capella or string quartets, where there's little or no content below 60 Hz, when recorded as described, sound radically different (to me), and I dare say better. Indeed, I would suggest that to me, on those kinds of recording (which constitute a substantial minority of my library), the marginal contribution of that long wavelength content is more important than the stereophonic illusion.

 

[CherylJosie]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about sound reproduction, and very little about music.

To the people who haven't tried sub-woofers because their preferred kinds of music don't require the production of very long wavelength sounds: if you listen to much music which has not been recorded with close microphones in a dead room, you should consider trying sub-woofers if funds, living space & cetera permit (which is a pretty substantial if, I realise).

In my experience (n=1, &c) recordings made in halls, churches, and similar venues, when recorded with only a few microphones, sound significantly different when reproduced with sub-woofers. Even a capella or string quartets, where there's little or no content below 60 Hz, when recorded as described, sound radically different (to me), and I dare say better. Indeed, I would suggest that to me, on those kinds of recording (which constitute a substantial minority of my library), the marginal contribution of that long wavelength content is more important than the stereophonic illusion.

Where does that long wave content originate from if none of the transducers in the original performance have any LFE? Just because the room is big doesn't mean it spontaneously generates those frequencies when stimulated. Even room modes with low Q aren't going to be strongly stimulated by sound of disparate wavelength and large venues aren't modal in the sub bass, they are reverberant.

I'd offer a guess that what you are perceiving is out-of-band content that is leaking through the subwoofer crossover and playing through a muddy transducer that is possibly localizable at those wavelengths. I'd expect that to sound different but not better unless your left/right mains are exhibiting severe response anomalies at their placement because of SBIR or from being in a modal null.

 

[DanielT]

You should have this if you want to dig REALLY deep. I think it seems overkill, a little silly, but okay, maybe it isn't. Maybe I'm just prejudiced.

But I admit, it's male, macho with big things that vibrate (as the girl said).

Ultra-low frequency Rotary Subwoofer

What is this? Ultra-low frequency Rotary Subwoofer I've never heard of. Seems exciting. Anyone know anything more about it? Is it possible to get it for Hifi? Or? I have no idea.:) So for frequencies in if the audible range above 19 Hz? But how to solve it? What would you gain from that? That...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[Sashoir]

Where does that long wave content originate from if none of the transducers in the original performance have any LFE? Just because the room is big doesn't mean it spontaneously generates those frequencies when stimulated. Even room modes with low Q aren't going to be strongly stimulated by sound of disparate wavelength and large venues aren't modal in the sub bass, they are reverberant.

I'd offer a guess that what you are perceiving is out-of-band content that is leaking through the subwoofer crossover and playing through a muddy transducer that is possibly localizable at those wavelengths. I'd expect that to sound different but not better unless your left/right mains are exhibiting severe response anomalies at their placement because of SBIR or from being in a modal null.

Thank you for the tip! My speakers are as close as possible to the wall behind them; probably ~50mm. I'd say that's to minimise cancellation, but that would be an enormous lie: they are placed to minimise the cancellation of space in our living room
I'll try putting in a steeper low-pass filter to see if that changes anything (although from what you say, it could make my subjective experience actually worse).

 

[ryanosaur]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about sound reproduction, and very little about music.

To the people who haven't tried sub-woofers because their preferred kinds of music don't require the production of very long wavelength sounds: if you listen to much music which has not been recorded with close microphones in a dead room, you should consider trying sub-woofers if funds, living space & cetera permit (which is a pretty substantial if, I realise).

In my experience (n=1, &c) recordings made in halls, churches, and similar venues, when recorded with only a few microphones, sound significantly different when reproduced with sub-woofers. Even a capella or string quartets, where there's little or no content below 60 Hz, when recorded as described, sound radically different (to me), and I dare say better. Indeed, I would suggest that to me, on those kinds of recording (which constitute a substantial minority of my library), the marginal contribution of that long wavelength content is more important than the stereophonic illusion.

Wherever the information comes from, this I agree with.
Cowboy Junkies album Trinity Sessions was recorded in Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity. The first cut, Mining For Gold begins with an open mic prior to Margo singing. Even during her performance, you can still hear it. There is so much sound in the ambient environment picked up by the Microphone. You don't get the feel of that without a Sub. Even with my mains in Pure Direct, you lose something of what is there in the recording.

 

[Vacceo]

He didn't.
I did.
As a trained musician I disagree with the assertion that any note cannot be used musically, even if it is below the range of hearing.
Whether it is Melodic or Harmonic, it is part of the sound and feel of the composition, a deliberate choice of the Composer.
Do you really think Saint-Saëns just said,"Fcuk it, nobody can hear it anyways!," when he wrote his Symphony No 3? He made a deliberate choice, no different than a Composer deciding on Flute Solo or Duet with an Oboe.

To the point, whether you hear it directly or through the harmonics of the note and the feel or pressure of the soundwave, it is Musical.

Horror films include a nice amount of infrasonics precisely because sound does indeed contribute to the whole work.

 

[ryanosaur]

I've heard this called the Ghost Sound before. I think it's been narrowed down to something around 18.9 Hz. Just about a 1/4 step off the musical frequencies of D0 and E-Flat0.
I put a tone on from youtube and turned it down pretty low, walked away. Probably within about 5 minutes I was feeling a bizarre anxiety. It was pretty fun to feel that in such a subtle yet palpable way. As soon as I stopped it, maybe within 30 seconds, I felt so much better.

Dunno if that was the one I used or not, but...

iirc, Mythbusters did this up, too.

 

[ta240]

Actually, a music composition requires neither. Sometimes music can be silence with 'intent' of music such as Stockhausen's 4'33".

.

And my TV off is a blank screen with the intent of a movie. I'm an artist!!!

 

[CherylJosie]

Bringing the thread back on topic...

I'm using three subwoofers in my main home theater.

It's a combined living room/dining room where the dining area is in the back of the room and approximately 10'x12'. That's where the subs get the best LFE from boundary reinforcement.

I have two ancient SVS PB10's of differing vintage (it's the analog version of the PB1000, one of them has the SVS 'ISD' driver and the other has the Eminence 'NSD' driver). They are placed along the rear-ish sidewalls where there's a 50Hz dip from the quarter wavelength axial null on the long dimension. This placement is for two reasons. The first reason is that the room has a 45Hz burble from a strong room mode/SBIR that I'm trying to minimize. The second is that the phase is good in both of those locations, whereas the phase in the rear corners is highley skewed between those two location owing to the asymmetrical living room portion of the home theater.

I also have an ancient Mirage S12 subwoofer in the center of the rear wall (dining room) where that 45Hz burble is more prominent, but also where the 35Hz has more oomph. I've tuned the internal crossover of the Mirage to start rolling off just above that 45Hz burble to keep its contribution on a level with the rest of the spectrum so it doesn't warp the response unduly.

The SVS subs are ported at 18Hz and do 16Hz at -3dB in their placements. Having good phase at those two locations really helped extend their combined LFE with practically zero multiple sub LFE penalty.

I've adjusted their phase to match the Mirage sub at the rear of the room at 50Hz because that's where the SVS subs need the most help at their placements. Seems to work. The Mirage seems to be ported near 20Hz based on its LFE although honestly I don't have any spec on that.

The three cats in the house were chewing on the PBS subwoofer knobs and changing the settings of the amplitude and phase after I calibrated with REW. At first I thought my housemate must be sabotaging the system until I noticed the teeth marks in the knobs and removed them to prevent future mischief.

I re-tuned the phase match to the Mirage at 50Hz by ear and guessed at the level setting from memory, with some fine tweaks by ear. It's not rigorous without another instrument re-cal, but it's sort of working OK again. The real problem is the dog that keeps pissing on the speakers and leather sofa. It's a challenge to my patience, but I'm sort of stuck on the property investment partnership. Fortunately it's all modest budget gear and furniture that I repurposed from Craigslist and eBay at pennies on the dollar, or that dog would be looking for a new home right now.

The combined response of all three subs is wonderfully smooth in frequency response and the useful bandwidth extends from 16Hz through 120Hz where I've currently crossed over the towers. I found that the best sub distance corresponds to the location of the Mirage on the rear wall where I've set the SVS to phase match at 50Hz, even though the SVS subs are at least 5 feet closer and the Mirage is already phase shifted from its internal crossover set near 50Hz. I'm not sure I understand how that works when the impulse response is torqued like that, but I'm going with what my ears tell me. I get the best tactile slam by using the Mirage to set the distance, and I've done it by measuring the distance with a tape. When I still had access to the auto cal in the Onkyo (before the HDMI failed and I lost the on-screen menu), Audyssey wanted to set the sub distance where the SVS subs were, and now I realize that didn't work as well as setting the sub distance by ear for some reason.

I've since changed the room layout. My daughter moved out and took 4 towers with her to her new home and I bought a larger TV that interferes with the placement of the center tower, so I've decluttered and spread out the front sound stage.

This diagram doesn't show the reduction in towers. The center tower has been replaced with a horizontal center. The two large l/r towers near the TV are now approximately placed where the left/right wides were, but the left tower is farther from the corner, about in line with the fireplace threshold. The mid-sized wides towers have been moved to the left/right rear surround locations, but slightly closer to the MLP. The four smaller towers are now at my daughter's house with another horizontal center speaker and I haven't yet located an appropriate subwoofer for that system.

The living room portion up front is about 20' wide including the open stairwell wall toward the right and overall it's nearly twice as wide as the dining room portion. The stairwell portion and kitchen penetration extends in the wider half asymmetrically toward the right side and I've rotated my entire sound stage to match the asymmetrical wider front portion of the room. That skews the subwoofer placements from the MLP orientation and puts the combined wavefront from the three subwoofers slightly toward my right shoulder. The bass localization toward the right rear of the room is prominent with such a high crossover (currently 120Hz), but after many trial and error experiments, this arrangement and tuning is the only way to maximize the immersion while preserving the slam, so I'm learning to ignore the localization.

I recently re-oriented the modular loveseat/chaise to a more customary rectangular rather than diagonal rotation. The sidewall of the chaise interferes with the sound from the front right speaker somewhat and I've lost a couple of seating locations from this change, but the room is more functional now with the modular furniture doing a better job of subdividing the space and making room for a recliner in front of the fireplace (we don't use the fireplace here in SF Bay CA now that the winters are so warm).

From the front of the room, on the longer living room front wall, the low bass is knackered below 30Hz by the penetration to the kitchen and the open stairwell, especially on the front right sidewall where the right speaker is now at the base of the stairwell. Although I originally tuned the room with REW while the front speakers were closer together and further from that stairwell, after moving the front speakers farther apart and rotating the MLP for better immersion, I didn't like the sound of the mid-bass until I raised the crossovers from 80Hz to 120Hz, even though these towers reach 20Hz in a room with better boundary reinforcement without breaking a sweat. The subwoofers are already starting to run out of steam at 100Hz, with both attenuation and phase shift, so it's a little counter-intuitive running the crossovers that high in frequency.

I haven't re-measured with REW to analyze what's going on. I've also re-tuned the graphic EQ in the receiver by ear with the Syznalski online tone generator manually sweeping around to detect frequency response aberrations. I thought that had worked okay until I double-checked with surround music and decided I didn't like it nearly as much as I first thought.

After adjusting the graphic EQ with the tone generator, I fine-tuned the midrange of the LCR for natural-sounding voices with good match between the L/R towers and the horizontal center speaker below the 77" TV. I used Billy Joel's 'The Stranger' and '52nd Street' surround recordings for that because the recording engineer alternated mono vocals in the center channel with L/R mono phantom center vocals (presumably for some sort of acoustic/presence effect for the bridge in the middle of 'My Life' etc), and it's easier to match the midrange of the voice when it's being transmitted directly through those channels using a high quality studio vocalist.

The resulting EQ was substantially different than what I got using the tone generator, and that's a good indication to me that measured response as approximated by using a manually swept tone generator by ear isn't likely as good for calibrating a tough room with modest speakers as doing it by ear with actual program content. I'm still chewing on that one because I thought my initial calibration with REW using all towers up front (before upgrading to a larger TV) was pretty good, aside from the crossover integration. However, after changing the speaker layout and calibrating with a tone generator, the tonality of the inferior center speaker didn't match the tonality of the towers at all until I used real program content rather than a manually swept sine wave to set the graphic EQ. However, overall, now I'm pleased with the sound of the system.

I'm having a pseudo-religious epiphany that even with fried ears I seem to be better at calibrating a system by ear from program content now than I am at calibrating it by ear with sine wave instrumentation, and that has me worried about my sanity. Am I succumbing to audiophoolery in my old age? Or have I just deceived myself with confirmation bias by being too lazy and distracted to set up the UMIK while I'm in the middle of home renovations?

From my prior cal with REW, there's an Allison Effect dip in the L/C/R at crossover that is also aggravated by phase mismatch with the subwoofers. I did my best to minimize that dip but couldn't eliminate it entirely. Calibrating with REW with all towers compressed more closely together on the front wall worked okay while I had a traditional sofa with no rotation, but that calibration didn't seem to work as well after spreading the speakers apart and using the horizontal center, and I don't think the new sofa is the reason why.

The integration with the current more spread-out speakers and rotated MLP orientation didn't sound good until I raised the crossovers above 80Hz. I raised the crossovers of the surrounds too, and that also improved the perceived frequency response, and I've got no explanation for that because they didn't really need raised crossovers.

Maybe symmetry in the crossovers is also important to the perceived response, especially when the room is asymmetrical and the bass is highly localizable as well as fubar in the bass-limited channels from torqued room acoustics? Or maybe I'm just fooling myself until I set up REW again and check what I've done, perhaps finding out that it doesn't actually sound as good as I think it does once I recalibrate by instrumentation?

Anyway, what I learned from this experiment, and from my experiment in my apartment before I moved back in with my housemate, is that when the room is asymmetrical and the bass is fubar, there's no substitute for a well-calibrated and well-integrated subwoofer, even if the towers will do 20Hz easily. The fullness of the mid bass and the LFE both depend on good frequency response as well as solid impulse response and when the room acoustics are fubar the only way to optimize the bass is with meticulous subwoofer placement and integration.

I also learned that, at least when running modest older gear without automated room EQ and relying on the subwoofer controls plus the receiver's graphic EQ for integration, it's important to place subwoofers in every spot with good phase throughout the LFE, and only there. Adding subs where the phase is severely torqued will only result in massive frequency response and impulse response anomalies that no amount of tweaking the sub integration to the bass-limited channels can fix. Maybe multichannel DSP/subEQ can align poorly placed subs to each other better, but I'm willing to bet my system that even in that case, placing subs where they have good phase is still critically important to the final integration, especially at crossover.

At my apartment, I managed to get smooth subwoofer bass from 16Hz to 100Hz and solid tactile with two PB10s, but adding a third VTF-1 didn't help at all no matter where I placed or tuned it, because I had already used the only two placements in the apartment with good phase in the bass. Those placements were in the front right corner on top of a cart that I turned into a huge fiberglass bass trap, and on the left sidewall under the dining table. 600W handled that room nicely, but I also needed a huge absorber on the rear wall behind the sofa, another huge absorber on the ceiling, and a third absorber/false wall around the center speaker to tame the bass, plus a thick absorber on the right wall in front of the glass door. These absorbers were very thick and had good bandwidth down to 150Hz and the bass was rock-solid.

The bass was also localizable and asymmetrical, and I found that somewhat distracting, but the great tactile and frequency response were worth it. I had to add some phase shift to that left subwoofer to tame a 20Hz mountain and bring down the combined phase near crossover for better integration with the rest of the channels.

At my home, I managed to get somewhat smooth bass from 16Hz to 100Hz and somewhat solid tactile with two well-placed PB10s, but I had to add a third Mirage in the third subwoofer placement with good phase to fill out the region around 30Hz because it wasn't working out so well with only two subs. I needed a total of 900W for this room.

In both of these rooms, placing the subwoofers anywhere else in the room was a bass disaster. With modest gear and graphic EQ, it's critically important to maximize the acoustics, but once that's done well the response can rival the best systems in the same space for a tiny fraction of the price. There's no substitute for proper placement and tuning IMO.

I haven't had the pleasure of tuning a room that doesn't need subwoofers. In the low budget community, such rooms are unlikely IMO. That's more in line with dedicated listening rooms where the dimensions and shape of the room can be controlled up front. In a typical dual-purpose listening room, the shape is asymmetrical, there's penetrations to other spaces, and the phase of the bass is all over the map except if you are lucky you will have two or three locations where subs play well together and sort of integrate okay with the rest of the channels too.

In two channel mode or direct mode, all of my rooms sound like garbage. It's tough tuning rooms like these.

 

[DonH56]

Aside: Multiple musicians (instruments) playing together produce "beat tones", subharmonics of the fundamental tones. We (musicians) use that in tuning as you can hear the "beats" and when everyone is in tune there are rich subharmonic sounds (difference tones) generated, kind of "fuzzy" buzzing sounds. These can go quite low, especially for e.g. a section of string bass players. That is part of the reason I decided my system needed subs many years ago (with main speakers only going down to about 50 Hz). From that time hence I have advocated for the use of subs in music (or mixed music/HT) systems.

 

[CherylJosie]

Aside: Multiple musicians (instruments) playing together produce "beat tones", subharmonics of the fundamental tones. We (musicians) use that in tuning as you can hear the "beats" and when everyone is in tune there are rich subharmonic sounds (difference tones) generated, kind of "fuzzy" buzzing sounds. These can go quite low, especially for e.g. a section of string bass players. That is part of the reason I decided my system needed subs many years ago (with main speakers only going down to about 50 Hz). From that time hence I have advocated for the use of subs in music (or mixed music/HT) systems.

That could explain it I guess?

 

[AdamG]

I've heard this called the Ghost Sound before. I think it's been narrowed down to something around 18.9 Hz. Just about a 1/4 step off the musical frequencies of D0 and E-Flat0.
I put a tone on from youtube and turned it down pretty low, walked away. Probably within about 5 minutes I was feeling a bizarre anxiety. It was pretty fun to feel that in such a subtle yet palpable way. As soon as I stopped it, maybe within 30 seconds, I felt so much better.

Dunno if that was the one I used or not, but...

iirc, Mythbusters did this up, too.

Put that on my main system and the whole house started rattling and dishes in the kitchen were rattling, glasses ringing. Be forwarded if you have ULF capable Subs turn this down before trying. Wow, a continuous ULF tone will heat up your subs if not careful here.

 

[CherylJosie]

Put that on my main system and the whole house started rattling and dishes in the kitchen were rattling, glasses ringing. Be forwarded if you have ULF capable Subs turn this down before trying. Wow, a continuous ULF tone will heat up your subs if not careful here.

That anxiety was probably because of the cost of potentially replacing your subwoofers after generating a continuous sine wave lol

 

[ryanosaur]

Put that on my main system and the whole house started rattling and dishes in the kitchen were rattling, glasses ringing. Be forwarded if you have ULF capable Subs turn this down before trying. Wow, a continuous ULF tone will heat up your subs if not careful here.

Ya. Low Frequency waves are POWERFUL.
I did say in that statement I turned it down pretty low.

That said, I remember when I first connected my Outlaws back in 2018 and was playing around with some test tones. If you've ever wondered what structural damage sounds like in real time...
I think I had the Subs at 1/2 gain and wasn't thinking much of it.

Scared the living fcuk outa me. Got that turned down faster than I've ever moved before in my life! (Even when I was a kid in the MidWest under a tornado warning during a brutal storm. There was this sound as if locomotive was dropped on the street from 1000 feet... just *CRASH...
I was downstairs in the basement before my mom even got the first words out of her mouth to tell me to go.)

 

[AdamG]

Ya. Low Frequency waves are POWERFUL.
I did say in that statement I turned it down pretty low.

That said, I remember when I first connected my Outlaws back in 2018 and was playing around with some test tones. If you've ever wondered what structural damage sounds like in real time...
I think I had the Subs at 1/2 gain and wasn't thinking much of it.

Scared the living fcuk outa me. Got that turned down faster than I've ever moved before in my life! (Even when I was a kid in the MidWest under a tornado warning during a brutal storm. There was this sound as if locomotive was dropped on the street from 1000 feet... just *CRASH...
I was downstairs in the basement before my mom even got the first words out of her mouth to tell me to go.)

I know the sound first hand. Cracked a half dozen ceramic tiles mounted on concrete slab foundation and cracked drywall seams. Dual JTR Captivator 2400ULF’S are serious air hammers when fed. My mistake this time I was watching a Netflix show with Atmos and these shows have a lowered noise floor. Meaning you have to turn up the volume more than a standard 5.1 Dolby stream. So I had the MV at -20db when I came across the Video you posted. Then without thinking it through properly I followed your link to the YouTube version and casted it to my Fire Cube. Then all hell broke loose! Totally my fault here. It did startle me. I’m fully awake now! Btw….